Disk drive appears to work normally, but nothing shows up on screen

So my dad got the original ps3 fat when it came out, and about 7 months ago it stopped reading disks reliably. I took it upon myself to clean the lenses of the disk laser, as I've done it before, but the issue persisted. So eventually I had to replace the entire disk laser assembly. Now, when I put a disk in the disk drive, it accepts the disk, and I can hear it spin up inside. But nothing new shows up on the screen (though sometimes the loading icon comes up in the top right corner, but still nothing shows up). I've tried games, DVDs and blu ray disks and nothing. I believe it's something to do with one of the cables on the assembly, because the plastic part of one of the ribbon cables in the disk drive broke off, but I can still sandwich it into the port fine. I just thought id get the community's say on it as well.